


my friend

by rangerhitomi



Series: radical dreamers [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Multi, Past Character Death, Past Lives, Past Relationship(s), Temporarily Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 10:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3892630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was there from the start, and Durbe watches every day for his friend to come back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my friend

He’s the first one to greet Durbe when Durbe’s eyes open for the first time, the first one to hold him by the shoulders as frantic thoughts rush through his head -  _where am I, what is this place, how did I get here, who am I_ \- and he’s the one who answers his questions with a look of resigned patience and barely concealed concern. 

 _Barian World,_ he says, and this means nothing to Durbe, means as little to Durbe as the fact that the only thing he knows about himself is that his name is  _Durbe_ - 

what a curious name, and how would he know it in the first place?

-and Durbe touches his own face with a clawed hand, touches the skin under his nose and wonders if there should be something there - he feels there ought to be, but he doesn’t know what - and his fingers examine the gems embedded in his skin. 

He doesn’t understand how he got to  _Barian World_ , or even remember where he was before, just that he  _existed_ here, just that he…

…at the back of his mind there’s a fleeting image, a blurred image, of something soft, a blue expanse, his voice pleading with someone, a flash of pain…

…and then he’s here. 

“How,” he begins, and the other helps him to his feet. 

“We don’t know. We just are.”

 _We_? Durbe wonders, and the other gestures to a slender figure sitting nearby on a set of crimson stairs. 

“I am Nasch, and this is Merag. We are Barians. And so are you.”

He looks over at Merag, and she’s sitting gracefully, twirling her long blue hair as she gazes back with violet eyes. Nasch helps Durbe to his feet.

“You’re the first to take this form since we arrived,” he says. “I feel a strong power from you.”

Durbe doesn’t feel it; he feels weak, and scared, and he wants everything to be explained, wants to know how he got here and where he came from, how he just  _happened_ into existence with only a name to go by and no purpose.

“I wonder what brought you here,” Nasch muses, and his eyes are a deep blue, and faintly familiar, but Durbe can’t recall why, it’s just a feeling, and the words _my friend_ appear in the back of his mind so he knows he can trust this… Barian.

* * *

 

Others arrive, over time. Vector is first, and Durbe doesn’t like him, doesn’t trust him, doesn’t care for the way he sneers at Nasch and shakes him off and wanders off by himself for long periods of time. Then there’s Mizael, who takes to the whole situation much the same way Durbe had, only with more yelling and demands and frustration, and Durbe thinks Mizael might be difficult to deal with, but a strong ally if he could make that work. It takes Durbe and Nasch both to hold up Gilag, who seems more stunned than anything, and asks very few questions but runs his hands over his face and mutters to himself sometimes. Finally, there’s Alit, a short man who lashes out violently and  _screaming_  when he wakes, hitting Mizael in the face, and Mizael threatens to kill him but Nasch calms down the situation and Alit finally comes to and demands to know the same thing the rest of them did-

- _why am I here?_

* * *

 

With Alit, there are seven of them, and Nasch brings them all together and stands at their head and says that they are the strongest warriors he has met since being here and proclaims them _the Seven Emperors of Barian World_ and they sit in silence for a moment because none of them really know what that means or what they’re even supposed to be emperors  _of_. 

* * *

 

It takes time, but Durbe discovers there are other Barians here, but none of them seem to have any of the strength that the seven of them possess, and reside in this world mostly as orbs of energy. He tries talking to them sometimes, but rarely gets any answers outside of  _we’re weak_  and Durbe wonders if something could be done about it or if they were doomed to this pitiful state for the rest of their existence.

The others aren’t outwardly concerned, for the most part. Merag is, a bit, and she often trails off into thought and leaves in the middle of her conversations with Durbe, as though she can see something that no one else can. Nasch stands in the palace throne room, gazing emotionlessly at the crimson crystals that comprise this world, as his fingers absently stroke the crest hanging from his neck.

* * *

There’s another world outside of this one, they discover after a little more time, and it’s…

…awful.

Mizael is so disgusted by these things, these  _humans_ , that he watches the crystals reflecting wars and bloodshed and murder – of women, of children! – and hurls a ball of energy at it. It shatters and Mizael storms off, and Nasch watches him go with an almost sad look in his eyes, and Durbe goes to comfort Mizael, but Mizael doesn’t want Durbe’s comfort and disappears in a portal for a few days.

* * *

 

“What if our purpose is to… stop the humans?” Vector suggests one day and Durbe is somewhat taken aback and Nasch furrows his brows.

“Maybe,” he says.

“They’re destroying their world,” Vector insists, “and maybe it’s our destiny to save their world from it. Maybe that’s our purpose.”

“The seven of us?” and Alit is skeptical, but Nasch nods ever so slightly and offers to look into it further before they make that decision.

* * *

 

The Astral World, they discover, is a world much like theirs, except while it exists and strengthens, Barian World weakens. They’re tied together through the human world even though it doesn’t seem like they can directly interact with the Astral World, through a ritual involving summoning monsters and doing battle, and it seems kind of preposterous to Durbe, but Nasch is accepting of it.

* * *

 

Nasch begins disappearing for long periods of time, and Durbe wonders where he goes, but can’t get a straight answer out of him, and Merag doesn’t really know either.

“He doesn’t tell me everything,” she says, and she sounds annoyed, as though she wants to chastise Nasch for it, but Durbe knows that she and Nasch had been whispering about something, and Merag’s been having strange dreams from the sound of it, and Nasch looks more and more worried by the day.

* * *

 

Durbe finally manages to catch Nasch returning in a portal, stumbling slightly and with a terrified look on his face, and Durbe catches him and helps him find his footing. He wants to ask where Nasch was but knows Nasch won’t tell him, will he, because he hasn’t up until this point-

“I don’t think we can trust Vector,” he whispers in Durbe’s ear, and he heads off shakily, leaving Durbe confused and worried.

* * *

 

Vector and Nasch have an argument, but it doesn’t last long before Vector waves him off and Nasch is left with his head bowed and fists clenched and he turns to go before spotting Durbe, standing behind a spire, and his shoulders slump.

“How much of that did you hear?” he says wearily, and Durbe is alarmed at how tired he seems.

“Enough. Merag has had visions of him… killing her?”

“Both of us.” Nasch walks slowly toward Durbe, looking reluctant, looking  _scared_ , and if Nasch is scared, Durbe is terrified. “I’ve been going to the human world-”

“Without telling the rest of us?” Durbe blurts out, furious, and he regrets it immediately by the sharpness in Nasch’s gaze.

“I can’t tell the rest of you what I’ve been doing because it  _concerns_  the rest of you, and I certainly can’t tell  _you_  because it-” he cuts off, looking to the side, and Durbe’s anger has been replaced by bewilderment.

“What?”

Nasch flings out a hand and grabs Durbe by the shoulder, pulling him close. With his other hand, he fumbles around his neck and pulls off his crest. He presses it into Durbe’s hands.

“Keep this for me.”

“What-”

Nasch takes Durbe’s face between his hands and rests their foreheads together. It’s a strange feeling, but not entirely unwelcome, being this close to the lord he admires most. “I trust you with this. You’ll know what to do when the time comes, but keep it safe. And when it does come time, no matter what… don’t hold back.”

He leaves, leaving Durbe standing scared and confused, clutching Nasch’s emblem, the symbol they had adopted for Barian World, alone.

* * *

 

Nasch doesn’t come back, and Merag is suddenly gone too.

Durbe stands in the throne room by the window, Nasch’s emblem in a pocket of his robes. For days he stands there, watching, waiting, hoping that Nasch will return, but their last conversation plays out in his mind and he knows Nasch had suspected something would happen to him.

Maybe he had planned it that way.

* * *

 

Years pass now,  _years_  without Nasch, years without Merag, and Durbe has taken on the mantle of responsibility for his fellow lords but he doesn’t stop missing Nasch.

A human arrives in their world one day, and he is filled with hatred so immense that it terrifies Durbe. Vector takes over and offers him power in exchange for serving the Barian World, and the human accepts, and he laughs as he discards his name, discards his face, and is reborn as  _Tron_.

Durbe is repulsed, disgusted, and wonders if Vector might have been right, maybe they are destined to save the human world.

* * *

 

Yuma Tsukumo is giving them a whole host of difficulties, and Vector fails with the Tenjos and Faker and the Arclights, and Gilag and Alit can’t beat Yuma, and Durbe’s sphere cubes aren’t designed to hold Galaxy Eyes, so they have to resort to following through with Vector’s half-assed plan in Sargasso.

Vector wants to destroy Yuma, and Mizael wants his revenge on Kaito, and the one who’s left is Ryoga Kamishiro, and he’s rude and crass and cocky and humorless and it kind of makes Durbe laugh a little inside because it reminds him of  _him_ a little, and when he tells Ryoga so, the boy responds with a snarky remark.

The boy is strong, very strong, and Durbe is impressed with his Chaos Number, but things don’t go quite according to plan and they have to leave, and Durbe is  _disappointed_  and he wishes he could study Ryoga Kamishiro a little more.

* * *

 

Durbe is furious with Vector for almost killing them all, and he’s seriously contemplating letting Mizael just kill him and be done with it, but they’re already down to just five lords, five against three boys and the Original Number, and it should be a cakewalk for five lords to take them down-

-but it’s not.

Vector goes on about ruins with Numbers in them and Durbe doesn’t care, until Vector says the words Durbe has been wanting to hear for so long but despaired of ever hearing-

 _Nasch might be there_.

So he goes, the leader, to the human world for the first time, but something goes wrong and-

* * *

 

-he wakes up in a green jungle, white sunlight blazing in his eyes, and he flinches and hold his hand to his eyes, and there’s something  _there-_

-his hand is  _human_ , isn’t it, and there’s a lapis on his wrist with his gem on it. He puts his hand to his face and pushes up the glasses there, and he scowls because the fact that he needs glasses at all is a testament to the uselessness of this body, and-

-and his lapis is broken and his arm is hurting, and the shirt he had woken up in was torn somehow.

He curses his luck and struggles to recall how he got there in the first place. The image of Astral’s ship flashes in his mind and he groans. Naturally, and if he crash landed here, then surely-

He freezes as an enormous bear lumbers out of the trees and spots Durbe; he prays inwardly that the bear might consider just leaving him – he doesn’t seem to be of much substance anyway, with his thin, weak body – but it keeps coming at him and-

-and there’s Yuma, and Astral, and Durbe can’t  _believe_  how terrible his luck is, that he has them both  _right here_  and he’s trapped in this form and his lapis is broken so he’s  _helpless_  to do  _anything_ -

“What’s your name?” Yuma asks cheerfully, and Durbe panics and says the first name that pops into his head, the name that he had been whispering to himself every night for years-

-“Nasch.”

Yuma buys it and Durbe can see Astral’s eyes narrow but pretends not to see – no human should be able to see him. Ryoga shows up, then, and he seems exasperated as he calls for Yuma, until he sees Durbe leaning against a tree, and points at him accusingly and demands to know  _who are you_ and  _why are you here_  and he definitely doesn’t buy Durbe’s  _I’m just travelling_  because even in his head it was a stupid excuse, and Ryoga evidently thinks so too, until they hear a scream and suddenly all Ryoga cares about is  _Rio_.

* * *

 

He doesn’t know what compels him to save Ryoga, only that the wall is falling and he doesn’t think about it, it is entirely instinctive, the voice in the back of his mind that whispers to him to  _keep him safe_  and he lands awkwardly on top of him, arms wrapped around his shoulders, and for a moment Ryoga is too stunned to push him off, and Durbe feels that tug again, _this seems familiar_ , and he slowly pulls himself free and Ryoga scoots away, looking disgusted.

Ryoga calls to Yuma through the walls, and it’s the way he says Yuma’s name, the way he bites his lip as he waits for a response, the way his eyes soften and his shoulders relax and the small smile plays across his lips when Yuma calls back that send a jolt of something through Durbe, but he’s not sure what it is –  _jealousy_ , that voice teases him again, and he ignores it, because  _why should I be jealous of Ryoga Kamishiro_ , only the voice quietly corrects him,  _Yuma Tsukumo._

* * *

 

Ryoga hates the Barians, this much is abundantly clear from the way Ryoga spits out his accusation that he was  _sure you’re a Barian, "Nasch_ ," and Durbe glances down at his lapis when Ryoga’s not looking.

The ruins painted on the wall catch his eye and he reads them, even though he shouldn’t be able to, he’s sure, because it doesn’t even look like a language he’s ever seen before. That familiarity pops up in the back of his head again, the one that had once whispered  _my friend_  and his stomach clenches.

 _It’s just a coincidence_ , he tells himself unconvincingly.

The traps begin, and Durbe is really angry with himself for letting his lapis get damaged when they’re almost crushed by falling blocks, and when the floor collapses around them, but he has this instinctive  _need_  to make sure Ryoga’s safe and it’s befuddling because he really couldn’t care less, he thought.

Ryoga wrenches his wrist free from Durbe’s grasp and Durbe’s wondering how many more of these traps there are, when he realizes that the rest of the legend is missing-

_The knights turned their swords on him… And the souls of the knight and his Pegasus were taken up to Heaven._

-but he still knows how it ends.

 _Why do I know this_? he thinks, heart clenching, and Nasch’s voice echoes in his mind  _\- I can’t tell the rest of you what I’ve been doing because it concerns the rest of you_  – and Durbe wonders if it had anything to do with these ruins that Vector told them about.

The floor opens up, then, and Ryoga let out a strangled yell as he falls into the endless abyss, but there’s Durbe, grabbing his hand, and everything happens too fast for Durbe to understand it.

He sees the aura around Ryoga’s body before he feels the jolt of energy rush through their clasped hands, into his lapis, and he feels a painful stinging sensation all over his body before he realizes he’s back in his true form. He sees the terror in Ryoga’s eyes-

such blue eyes

-and suddenly Ryoga’s yelling to Yuma,  _don’t trust him, he’s a Barian_ , as though Barians could never be trusted. And maybe that was the experience of these young boys, with Vector, but Durbe is hurt that Ryoga’s voice is so full of  _hate_ , so full of  _malice_  toward Barians, that simply by  _being_ a Barian made Durbe a liar.

 _We’re not all like Vector,_  he thinks desperately.  _We just want to save our world._

He can let go, and there would be one less problem, one troublesome duelist out of their way, and he can break Yuma in the process, can’t he, by letting his best friend die-

-but he doesn’t.

He’s too intrigued by this boy, this boy who is dangling over the precipice of death, but who would  _rather die than let Yuma be hurt by another Barian_.

There is no fear in Ryoga’s eyes, no fear over his own fate that Durbe can see, anyway, and his eyes are narrowed – Durbe can’t stop himself from staring at them, so  _blue_  – and Durbe suddenly understands the love Ryoga has for Yuma.

It reminds him of the love he had for Nasch all those years ago, maybe the love he still had.

Could a Barian even love?

Yuma pulls it off and takes the legendary Number, and Durbe feels… strange, like something he needed slipped through his fingers. Ryoga is disgusted when Durbe pulls him up and shoves his hand away, like just touching the Barian was like touching something diseased, and Durbe is irritated because  _I just saved your life, you little ingrate_  but he doesn’t say anything about it, tells Yuma that next time they met it wouldn’t end the same way, and leaves.

All he can think about is Ryoga Kamishiro.

* * *

 

Alit comes back from his ruins clutching his neck and whimpering, and Durbe wonders if he had experienced something similar to what he had, except Alit is much worse for the wear. He collapses into Durbe’s arms like a child would his mother’s, and sobs  _they killed me, they_ executed _me_  and all Durbe can do is hold him and tell him  _no, you’re here, you’re alive_ and try to ignore the unsettling feeling in his body because he feels like there was something more to the legend of the knight than he’d thought.

* * *

 

Mizael makes a mess of the throne room, shattering crystals as he screams about how  _they’re lying, they’re just screwing with me, I’m not human, I’m not a filthy human_  and Durbe realizes now what is happening, or at least he thinks he does, and he doesn’t  _want_ to.

* * *

 

Gilag comes back empty handed too, only he’s not angry or scared like the others. When Durbe asks what happened to him,  _do you remember_ , Gilag looks uneasy, looks away, covers his ears as though trying to drown out a sound, and mutters that  _yeah, I remember it_ , but that’s all Durbe can get out of him.

* * *

 

Vector still doesn’t return, and Durbe is worried that Vector is plotting something else that will get them all killed.

He has an uncomfortable feeling it’s happened before.

* * *

 

Mizael looks at him with concern in his sharp human eyes, as Durbe offers quietly to go to the last two ruins – there’s one for each of them, but Nasch and Merag aren’t here, so they can’t go, and someone needs to make sure Astral and Yuma don’t get the last two Numbers-

“Are you all right?” Mizael asks, and it’s in a quiet voice, uncharacteristic of him. “Do you think…  _he’ll_ be there?” Mizael never uses Nasch’s name, not since he went missing, and Durbe has always wondered why, but it didn’t really matter, did it?

“I think we’ll be able to find out where he is,” Durbe replies, and Mizael’s eyes narrow now.

“You don’t buy this nonsense about us being human, do you?”

“Of course not,” Durbe says sharply, but he’s lying.

* * *

 

The ruins are familiar to him, uncomfortably so, and as he looks around at the crushed walls and towering labyrinth, the words echo in his head again.

_My friend._

There’s Ryoga Kamishiro, dueling… his sister, dueling a… spirit of some sort, and then Durbe feels himself drawn into it, drawn so heavily into _something_ and he doesn’t know what-

And he hears his own voice, in a ridiculous bravado that he would never do now-

 _“Do not be surprised, my friend. Did you not think I would come rushing to your aid_?”

With these two lines, his entire reality shatters.

There he is, flying on the Pegasus, and below him is Ryoga Kamishiro, except he’s dressed like… like a king, and it’s… not possible, it can’t be, can it? And  _my friend_ , there it is again, there’s the link, there’s the voice that has been echoing in his head all these years, ever since he woke up, ever since…

…ever since he met Nasch.

 _Impossible_ , he thinks, but it’s not really, is it?

* * *

 

He returns to his ruins every day, each time being immersed in a different vision, a vision that leaves him feeling weak and shaky, but he  _needs_  to know, needs to understand who he is.

He sees his death at first – he’s accepted that he is the same knight, that the knight was him, somehow, in a life before – over and over; he can almost feel the swords pierce his flesh, and the more he relives it, the more real the pain is, until he’s hunched over on the ground, pale-faced and sweaty, tears streaming from his eyes, and he wishes he could see something,  _anything_ , else.

So… he does.

* * *

 

He’s sparring now, with a young man. They’re wearing light pants and no shirts and they’re both laughing as their practice swords clash.

 _You’re improving each day, Prince Nasch_.

 _I have a good teacher, Durbe_.

* * *

 

Now he’s at a tavern with the other soldiers, and they’re laughing and his face is bright red but he’s

_he’s happy_

and so are they, and they’re toasting the king’s health, and the longevity of the kingdom, and  _to Durbe’s mysterious flying horse_  and Durbe lets out a roar of laughter and reminds them that Mach is a Pegasus.

* * *

 

There’s soft crying as the young prince is standing over his father’s casket, and he’s holding his sister’s hand, and Durbe is standing close behind them, and they grieve the king’s death together.

* * *

 

There is Prince Nasch, kneeling as the crown is placed on his head, squeezing his eyes shut as the men and women gathered in the hall fall to their own knees, and Durbe is among them, as they murmur prayers for King Nasch’s long life.

* * *

 

King Nasch places a sword on Durbe’s shoulder as Durbe kneels, tells him to stand, and hands Sir Durbe a sword, a sword that matches his own because _you have always been there for me, and you have always shown me your loyalty._

 _My loyalty is forever to you, my friend_.

They embrace, and hold each other a little too long, a little too tightly.

* * *

 

Durbe’s hands clench on Mach’s reigns as Nasch sobs over Merag’s body. He feels guilty; he had been too late to save her.

He shuts his eyes over Nasch’s anguished cries.

* * *

 

He lets the tears flow as they stand by Merag’s casket. Durbe had fought it for so long that he wonders now if it would ever stop.

“Durbe,” Nasch whispers, shaking.

“Yes, my friend?”

Nasch turns to him, stumbling toward him, and collapses into Durbe’s arms. Durbe holds him as they cry together.

* * *

 

Durbe returns to Barian World, tripping over the hem of his robes, and leans against a spire of crystal. He knows now what Nasch had been doing in the human world, and he takes out the crest and runs his fingers over it.

Nasch had entrusted his memories of being human to him. Like King Nasch trusted Sir Durbe more than anything, so had Barian Lord Nasch trusted Durbe the same.

Durbe’s memories of Nasch end at... at that battle, but he knows deep in his heart that Nasch had met a horrible end, the same as the rest of them, and Durbe had left Nasch's side back then, left him to die alone.

And in his hands he holds the key to those memories.

He has to force Ryoga Kamishiro to remember who he really is.

He has to force Ryoga Kamishiro to remember watching everyone he loved die a lifetime ago.

* * *

 

Ryoga Kamishiro looks up at Durbe and bites his lip. His chin is quivering and his eyes swim with tears that might fall at any time.

“How do I tell Yuma?” he whispers.

Durbe feels that disappointment again, that feeling that he has been… replaced. Ryoga Kamishiro loves Yuma Tsukumo as much as Durbe loved Nasch in their past lives. A different kind of love, more emotional than the blend of emotional and physical Durbe felt for his king, but a love all the same.

And Durbe will never have  _his_ Nasch back, not fully, because  _his_ Nasch is now filled with conflicting memories of three lifetimes, filled with love toward different people-

did King Nasch love Sir Durbe the way Sir Durbe loved King Nasch?

did  _Nasch_  love Durbe the way Durbe loved Nasch?

-and the most recent, the most painful love was the love Ryoga had for Yuma, because the most despicable kind of fate had placed them in each other’s paths and made them friends and made them  _save_ each other, only to cruelly place them on opposing sides of a war that would determine the fate of three worlds, when they thought they would be fighting together.

“He will hurt,” Durbe whispers, and he hesitates before placing a hand on Ryoga’s shoulder.

No…  _Nasch’s_  shoulder.

“But you belong with us. We need you to save our world.”

Ryoga’s eyes flick upward, first at the hand on his shoulder and then into Durbe’s eyes.

There they are, those vivid blue eyes that Durbe remembers so well.

He places his hand on Durbe’s.

“We won’t hurt him.”

It’s not a question.

Durbe helps Nasch to his feet and Nasch doesn’t let go of his hand. It must be a strange sight, a human boy and a Barian Lord standing together like this.

“I’m going to find a way to make sure that we  _all_  live,” Nasch whispers, “because we need each other.” And deep in his soul, Durbe knows Nasch will keep his promise.


End file.
